Scape Part I: Star Scape
by Leki
Summary: He saw her blown away in front of his eyes. He just doesn't want to believe it.
1. Star Scape

**Scape**

by Leki

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_Invader Zim. Tak/Dib. Rated K. Genre - Romance/Angst_

_He saw her blown away in front of his eyes. He just doesn't want to believe it._

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Disclaimer - Leki owns no Invader Zim or characters! The crazy person, Jhonen Vasquez, does. Leki only owns this storyline, and wants to tribute Tak and Dib.

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In case you don't know, Tak is from Season 1 of Invader Zim, episode appearance - 'Tak: The Hideous New Girl'.

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(dictionary(dot)com) - scape (noun) - a scene; a view.

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**Part I: Star Scape**

_Tak's Point-of-View_

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_'This is forever_

_But it won't last long'_

_-'To Die For' by The Birthday Massacre_

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The last thing that I could remember was being pushed away by metal arms, and sent plummeting into the vastness of outter space, stars flying by. All while the laughter of victory grew fainter the farther I flew.

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Time has stretched for me, and I can no longer think of how long I have been here. I can only know that I have been here for a long time, almost enough time for my life-support pack to run out of fuel and go offline.

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For my pack to go offline would be unthinkable. It would instantaneously end all of my goals and missions. I must not allow that to happen.

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That is what made me push the EJECT button on the console. It was very chancy, to volunatarily throw yourself into space where there's nothing to steady your body or mind on, but it was better than resigning myself to an almost certain doom. I was forced to leave my custom ship and my custom SIR, Mimi. My suit had room only for one, and that was for me. Tak. The Invader.

-/-/-

Thank the stars that I was still in the range of the gravitation of Earth. By taking advantage of the ship's ejection powers and using a grapler on moving space junk and chunks of broken off stars, I managed to pull myself close enough for the gravity to pull me in and down. And using an inkling of the precious fuel I had left, I shielded myself for the crash. To weak to navigate, I had to let myself fall by chance, at the beck of the forces around me.

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As best as I could, I aimed away from cities where those stupid, filthy humans would disturb my repairs and rebuilding. They have never done nothing good for me. For a minute, my mind went off track.

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_"Do you want some meat Tak?" Right on Valentine's-_

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"..." Slowly, I blinked my true, dark purple eyes, shaking away the memory. My pack must be more severely broken then I thought to waste my time thinking about humans. They couldn't, WOULDN'T, help me now. With a sigh of tiredness, I rolled myself onto my side, rolling onto my elbow. I looked around, looking at the small crater I had made. I stared at the steep climb with distaste. I was exhausted, but already the first move was hard.

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With moves that were gradually getting weaker, I began to drag myself up the side of the crater's cliff, crawling as fast as I could. The longer I spent here, the less likely my fuel would remain. I'd spend to much of the precious stuff trying just to cling to the nasty smelling soil so I wouldn't slide down, which would make me restart all my grueling efforts. Stupid earth, did not a single good thing for me. Well, maybe, if I was lucky, and the heated, firey blast from the impact didn't scorch everything...

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Eureka.

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Around, just a few feet from the rim of the hole, there were plants. As fuel substanence went, it wasn't very potent, but they would do.

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My long fingers curled around the stems of the flowers, and wrenched them from their earthy resting place. Pickily, even though I didn't really have the energy to be, I flicked the clods of earth away before letting my pack ingest the energy from it. The blast would have warned any potential bugs for energy to scurry away, and the earth was even less of worth than the plant. I didn't want my pack smelling of the stagnant air bubbles that were trapped in there.

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Even though it was small, the boost was less than a second delayed, and I felt small slivers of adrenaline boosted into my system. With that, I managed to grab the neighbors of the last plant, and supply myself further with energy, energy that would be put towards finding something abit better, besides flowers.

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_Garlands and braided ropes of flowers adorned most of the classroom, little colored, construction paper hearts crammed in amongst the braids, definitely not Ms. Bitters' style. Some hyper-active child had probably persuaded her with a new book, as I could well see from where it was on her table. And probably aided by as good a mood as she could be in, a student, more likely a she, had gotten their wish of holiday decorations. The sleek black of that book cover did more for my eyes than the obnoxious brightness of the flowers and hearts. Flowers, a sign of love, affection-_

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"Hm." I couldn't figure out why those Valentine's Day memories were in my head. Probably forcefully recycling in some twisted circuit. I'd have to fix that right away.

-/-/-

Very quickly, I found myself a home. For now, I hypnotized some unlucky worms to give me parts needed to build my home and the small lab I would need to keep myself going. It would do, until I had what I need to make my own, more dependable, things. It all came together very quickly, in days. It wasn't the high-technology I would have had in my original base, but it would do for now, this basic design upon which to start my world domination yet again. Of course, I hadn't started out expecting to much from the human technologies, even since round one. All I could depend on was my own creativity and skills. It was against the grain for me to wish for things that weren't practical, or unachievable, but I wished sorely for my old equipment.

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Damn that infernal Zim for restarting my Earthly conquest. And Dib hadn't been any help, either. They would both pay.

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I ignored the fact that Dib had in fact been the only student that talked to me at Skool, the only one that was intelligent and brave enough to start a conversation. Of course, the fact that he had talked to me at all put is very intelligence and bravery into question. Perhaps it was only stupidity and misunderstanding. A hope for a friend that had no reason to be hoped for.

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Dib had only been curious about what a person such as I was doing in such a low leveled Schooling Faculty, about why I had suddenly blown in, in the middle of the school year. He was curious about his friend... No, his _class mate_. Definitely not a friend. You didn't thwart your friends. Although my victory _would_ have meant his demise.

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With a swift shake of my head, I kept from that line of thought. The blame rested solidly on Zim and Dibs' shoulders. I continued to weld my new tools together. Making even more tools, a new computer, stabilizing and reinforcing my base... And even though I couldn't bring myself to replace my old partner SIR, Mimi, and put valuable time into the advanced circuitry needed... the chore list was endless.

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My thoughts wondered again. Oh stars, would I ever need to take some more time to fix my own circuitry...

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It wasn't his fault that my holographic disguise was so perfect, he hadn't a clue until he stumbled upon the truth, or that Zim had given him a clue; something no Irken should ever do to ANY other species that was going to be decimated or conquered. It gave them a chance to fight back. Even if, in the very end, it really wouldn't matter if they tried. They were all brought to their knees.

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But it didn't matter.

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Either way, whether Dib was innocent or guilty, he was in my way. He had to be removed.

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I silently cursed that I had happened to fall so close to the city I had originally landed in, and started my operation. I ignored the fact that it would indeed be a better strategy to get out of that city, away from the two likeliest beings to stop my plans, and I somehow managed to convince myself that I knew this city. I knew where parts could be obtained, where to get money. I knew where I could set up base. I ignored the fact that Dib was only a few miles away from my current position.

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I turned my back on the beautiful light shining from the stars over head, through the glass of my windows, where just days earlier I had been floating helplessly. I settled down to plan my plans, to gather my resources. I forced myself to restart. I forced myself to forget my only friend. He was no use to me now.

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_'This is a memory_

_That fades away in never ending'_

_-'To Die For' by the Birthday Massacre_

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All lyrics (at the beginning and end) belong to the song 'To Die For' by The Birthday Massacre. I thank them for giving me inspiration for this story.

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Hope you enjoyed this. Later chapters, peeps!


	2. Dream Scape

**Part II: Dream Scape**

_[Dib's Point-of-View]_

_'Tonight you can dream, boy_

_Imagine a whisper'_

_-'To Die For' by The Birthday Massacre_

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Dib's eyes opened in the middle of the night and he stared at the ceiling. There wasn't much to that ceiling, except for the mobile of the planets that he himself had built with his dad's soldering tools. He'd even experimented with blown glass to make the shells of the planets, so lights could be put into them if he wished. Right now, he had the switch turned off so he could sleep, but he flicked it on since sleep was no longer a possibility, watching the lights come on to cast dim light of Mar's red, the sun's yellow, earth's blue. The second switch sent the planets circling. His sister called it childish, hanging a mobile over your bed; it was too much like a baby's mobile over a crib. But he liked it, especially on nights like these when he woke up and couldn't go back to sleep, but couldn't be bothered to get up. He followed their orbits, steadily, never-endingly circling above his bed. He wanted to attach some stars to it. Maybe hang them around the little wire figure of an alien with curly antennaes. With little glass disks of purple eyes. His mind drifted with the orbits of the planets.

By the time he had been able to climb back up that mountain of metal that was Tak's base after she had thrown him to the bottom via a long chute for who-knows-what, he had seen what could only be Zim's ship flying upwards to the spout of fire that was shooting from the earth's core. He'd been freaked out by the idea of tunnels of metal tubes snaking into his planet to suck out its core, only to be hurled into outter space like it meant nothing. But he still found himself hurrying quickly up the steep stairs, gasping for breath and drenched with sweat only to find the two ships battling above his head out of his reach. He didn't have a ship. He had the radars and scopes mostly, but he'd never been able to salvage anything ship-like. He watched them battling, not even sure what he would have done if he could race up there to intercede. They were both Invaders. But Zim, the one he didn't care about, who he honestly wanted to kill to save his earth, was trying to save his planet- only Heaven knows why. But Tak... she couldn't have possibly meant to destroy everything, could she? She'd lived with them, learned with him, ate with him. He realized no, she had never learned. She was of an alien species that obviously had advanced beyond his own. He thought she was smart, always guiding him and helping his theories, but she'd only been instructing him like an adult instructs an infant out of sheer patience in kindness. And she had always rejected his food, and only now he realized that her alien digestive system, if she had any at all, could not partake of his humanly foods. The thoughts of them not having connected made him lonely, made his insides cold like frozen water. The thought that it had only been a facade to get her by in the crowd of humanity she was forced to endure. He thought they had connected. He had seen something special in her, and he had dared to hope that she had seen something in him. He'd shared his secret desires with her, his theories, his projects. He shared everything with her that no one else cared about. She even had some theories and projects of her own, although she had never talked about desires or her personal preferences.

But still, even after her betrayal, when his thoughts were racing, a large part of him was cheering her on, wanting her to smash Zim into the farthest reaches of space.

"Come on Tak, come on, you can't possibly lose to a simpleton like him. Tak, Tak, please, come on! Don't let him destroy you!" He had screamed to the unfeeling sky above him, the warriors unhearing to his pleas of victory, only to have Zim's rounded ship smash into hers and snap off a rocket. As he craned his neck to watch in horror, another jet was splintered and cracked, and the glass of her ship was webbed with fractures. There was a moment where he had had hope when her ship's tentacles had latched onto the hull of Zim's ship, perhaps for an ultimate blow of victory, but she was blasted away, his wish never completed. He screamed as it was her, not Zim, who was blasted into the dark, dismal abyss that was the blackness of space. He had sunk to his knees, watching as the ooze of the earthly core was pulled back inside the husk of soil, to revive the planet of its life, as he knew it would. He had pulled the switch on his climb back up to help. But he couldn't bring himself to care, or even be proud of himself for helping save the earth with this small gesture. The only friend he'd ever had had been blasted away from this life. He fell to his knees, and put his face in his hands. When his glasses got in the way, he furiously took them off and threw them to the side, rubbing at his eyes until they were raw. He didn't want to cry. He didn't want to get sucked into a dismal ditch of self-pity. He didn't want to realize that he was going to be stuck with the same people he'd been with since Kindergarten for even more years without respite of their stupidity and rejections.

Quickly, Dib rolled over on his bed and sat up. He was doing it again. Having realizations that he'd had a brief hope, and it had shattered it, making normal, daily life look gutted and miserable. He didn't want this realization. He put on a small smile, and went over to get his telescope. He scuttled to the rooftop, lugging it up on his back. This weight was satisfying. He loved looking at stars and dreaming of something different. He saw Gaz briefly on the couch, of course, still playing some war game at 2 in the morning. But he ignored her, she ignored him, and life went on as he climbed to the roof and settled down. He took out the blanket that was tucked away up there in a box, put there so he wouldn't have to lug it up along with his already heavy load.

When he'd set up, he breathed a sigh of relief and just sat there beside the telescope, not gazing at anything. He found that it was a relief just to be up here, beneath the stars and way from his housing. He laid back on the blanket, head padded on his crossed arms. Here is mind went pleasantly numb and slow, letting his brain rest.

It took him a moment to realize that there was fire in the sky. He got up, eyes widening in shock. He got up so fast he knocked over the canteen of water he also kept over here, making his blanket soggy. He didn't notice this as he ran forward to the edge of the building, as if he could get closer to the fire. It happened so fast he wasn't able to get to his telescope and check it out, but as it turned out, he didn't have to. The flames shot down right into his front yard in a blinding glare bursting heat, they sunk a crater into his yard, grass going up in wisps of dead nature. He waited in anticipation, trying to see the comet, or whatever it was, from beneath the flame. Slowly it dissipated and his mouth dropped open, then split into a huge grin. He knew that sharp shape, even with broken pieces, the deep purple that had always been her favorite, even with the destructive veins ruining the paint. It was Tak's ship.

Not even wanting to take the indirect root of the internal stairwell, I leapt over the ledge of the building and slid down the drain pipe, hands burning from grasping it to slow my decent. I slid the three stories and landed cat-like with bare feet, and ran stumbling in his eagerness to the crater. Looking only briefly, he went over the crater edge and landed beside the cooling metal. He held out his hand and felt the heat of the falling ship's descent. He snorted, pulling away, and pacing around it, already looking for hatch openings. It was too hot to open, but there was planning to be done anyways. His face darkened briefly, when he saw a hole the size of a body in the window of the ship, and pressed his lips tightly together. He shook his head rapidly. No. If her body wasn't there, then she must have escaped somehow. She wouldn't have died easily, not the stubborn person he had come to know.

He paced back and forth, and the waiting was a nightmare. He wondered if Tak had been wanting to ask him to go with her. He realized not, seeing as she had continued with her plans. He violently wished that ship would cool. He violently wished he could stop thinking.


End file.
